Popular Culture and Representations of Literacy

<p>Movies are filled with scenes of people of all ages sexes races and social classes reading and writing in widely varied contexts and purposes. Yet these scenes go largely unnoticed despite the fact that these images recreate and reinforce pervasive concepts and perceptions of literacy. </p><p>This book addresses how everyday literacy practices are represented in popular culture specifically in mainstream widely-distributed contemporary movies. If we watch films carefully for who reads and writes in what settings and for what social goals we can see a reflection of the dominant functions and perceptions that shape our conceptions of literacy in our culture. Such perceptions influence public and political debates about literacy instruction teachers' expectations of what will happen in their classrooms and student's ideas about what reading and writing should be.</p>